Dinosaur Apocalypse

After an initial attack, the Dinosaurs who returned from their rocky graves on September 15th seem to have withdrawn, possibly intimidated by this weapon:

Or maybe their withdrawal is only indicative of their desire to regroup and fortify after a period of initial reconnaissance. We may see them return in greater force. In the meantime, signs of their continued presence persist:

World Fantasy 2011

In late October I embarked on a great journey with the staff of Eraserhead Press to San Diego for the World Fantasy Convention. On the way down we stopped, in typical writer fashion, at four Breweries to sample the regional offerings. Driving in the rental minivan with a bunch of Bizarros was great fun.

At Borderland Books in San Francisco

My brain was blurry with happiness (and a slight buzz) all weekend. I met Patrick Rothfuss, the author of The Name of the Wind, and even sold him a book from the Eraserhead table. I acquired a copy of Peter S. Beagle’s The Last Unicorn. I talked in a bathroom with the owner of Night Shade Books while popping the tops of homebrews for our many esteemed guests. I talked a lot with one of my literary heroes, Ben Loory, whose book Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day, is my favorite bedtime story book. Garth Nix poured me a glass of Australian Wine. I picked up Seed, by Rob Ziegler, and enough other books to fill up the rest of the floor space in our apartment. I hung out with the husband and Cody Goodfellow and shared some moisturizing secrets with Carlton Mellick III.

We stopped in San Francisco for Halloween and hung out in the Castro District with New Bizarro Author Constance Fitzgerald and The Slow Poisoner.

All in all a great success and I’ll never let them leave for a convention without me again.

BizarroCon 2011

True to my vow never to be left behind again, I attended the annual Bizarro Convention at Edgefield last weekend. It was a mythical weekend, one that will be sung of in ballads for many centuries after the zombie apocalypse destroys most of the known world, leaving tiny pockets of civilization to remember the greatest triumphs of man.

I talked with Ross E. Lockhart, the editor of the Cthulhu Mythos anthology The Book Of Cthulhu from Nightshade Books. I soaked in a salt water spa with Brian Keene, Deadite author. I watched my husband rub a dead squid on himself and nail Michael Allen Rose in the face with a duck head.

Photo by Zoe Welch

I talked to Alan M. Clark about his new book, Of Thimble and Threat, and then practiced my blind contour drawing with Chrissy Horchheimer. I read from my new novella, “Artichoke,” which appears in the last Sands-tasticly edited Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens. I watched David Barbee’s wife chuck action figures at a rapt audience as her husband told us a tale of Yankee betrayal and the triumph of the South. Jeremy Robert Johnson talked a lot about poop and lightning. J.W. Wargo and Eric Robinson made me care deeply about the way of the pogo and my husband pulled hamburgers out of his ass.

Arriving at Bizarro Con was like coming home and leaving was really hard. I say we buy some chickens and start a commune. Hippies have been doing this for decades and if it weren’t for the fact that most of us don’t even know what a shovel looks like, I think we could do it.

Future of Kirsten

While at Bizarro Con, I was pulled aside by Carlton Mellick and led down a dark and gloomy stair. Instead of murdering me or revealing the secrets of the Bizarro Grail (a fabled, phallic object of post-apocalyptic worship known only to the greatest Bizarro authors), he offered me a five book contract with Eraserhead Press.

He told me the goal is to create a best selling book, that they think I can do it, and that they’re giving me five chances to prove how cool I am.

Fellow New Bizarro Authors Caris O’Malley and Eric Hendrixson received contracts as well. And Steve Lowe and Kirk Jones will be pitching ideas over the next few months. I look forward to seeing what these people can do and I know that I won’t be disappointed. It’s because of them I have a contract.

Early this morning my husband and I descended down the dark, dank stairwell to the Dinosaur Shelter.

I built the walls mostly out of Wheaties Brand Breakfast cereal.

Not many know this, but one of the most effective ways to repel a dinosaur is with Wheaties.

Some of our most treasured friends and relatives accompanied us down into the shelter. There’s a lot of room and I’m looking forward to admitting all of you who bought Love in the Time of Dinosaurs today as soon as we fix this one minor problem…

You see, something we hadn’t counted on happened around noon.

Uncle George ate through the South-Eastern wall.

A small raptor infiltrated the shelter and we’ve had to evacuate while the breach was repaired and the raptor exterminated.

Uncle George, severely reprimanded, has been placed on main artillery. He’s manning the Tsar cannon, which arrived on Tuesday.

So far we’ve had no major kills. Although we saw what I’m pretty sure was an Allosaur ripping the wheels off of our neighbor’s car.

But it might have been a man in a dinosaur suit.

It’s hard to tell and it’s best not to shoot if there’s a possibility it’s a human.

Remember, “National Dress Like a Dinosaur Day” is (inconveniently) happening in a few days time. And we don’t want more casualties than necessary.

And when they come back, they’re going to be totally prepared. Of course, this will only happen if enough people buy Love in the Time of Dinosaurs on September fifteenth. It’s only 11 days away now.

So I was trying to order this online:

But no one would sell it to me. They say I have to go into the store and pick it up, I need a background check and all of this nonsense that I know is just stalling so that I won’t have adequate weapons to defend myself against the dinosaurs on September 15th. They’re in league with the reptiles; bureaucrats and ebay sellers always are.

Besides, even if I went into the store to get one, how would I get it home? Tie it to the back of my bike? The back of my dog? It must weigh three hundred pounds. I need this thing shipped.

So that plan was a wash. But I did come up with this: It was built in the 16th century and it weighs about 39 tonnes. Apparently I can get it from “batzmaru252” on ebay for eleven dollars plus four dollars shipping and handling anywhere in the US or Canada. It feels like a solid deal, so I might do it. Fifteen dollars won’t break the bank, and they just don’t build giant cannons like this anymore.

While I’m waiting for the Tsar Cannon to arrive, I’ve started work on this giant crossbow:

The lumber cost was going to be epic, so my husband and I have been cutting down the neighbor’s trees at night.

With just fourteen days to go until the most important event in the history of mankind, I’ve taken some time to set up a Dinosaur Shelter complete with a large supply of weapons and fireflies. You can find a lot of information on how to defeat an army of highly advanced reptilian adversaries in my book, Love in the Time of Dinosaurs.On September fifteenth, everyone you know will be purchasing this book from amazon.com. If you don’t purchase it too, you’ll feel really awkward when everyone is talking about how awesome it was later on.

I thought I’d also give you some basic instructions on Dinosaur Shelter construction.

I’ll be sending out pdf copies of my newest book, an extremely poorly illustrated, but naively colorful children’s book entitled: The Death of Ivan Velociraptor, about an average well-to-do modern velociraptor who is tricked into traveling back to the cretaceous period.

Here’s a little sneak peak of what awaits Ivan in the late cretaceous:

You can join the facebook event for the Dinosaur Apocalypse to discuss purchasing tactics and weapons purchasing here.